Electrical Review, July 8, 1907, page 915:
WIRELESS POWER FOR SHIPS.
Occasionally, prophesies have been made by visionaries, as well as others, that the day of the steamship will soon be over, and its place will be taken by an electrically propelled vessel. This prophesy was given more weight than usually attaches to such forecasts when it was reiterated by Sir Hugh Bell, in his presidential address delivered recently before the Iron and Steel Institute, of Great Britain. He said that the old coal-burning machinery would be displaced, and that vessels with little or no machinery on board, with barely any crew, will speed on their way, drawn by the electric force generated at Niagara and transmitted over the ocean by wireless telegraphy. He thought, strange as this forecast might seem, it was no more incredible than what had happened during the preceding century.
The prophesy does seem somewhat optimistic at the present time, particularly if one would apply to the process contemplated our present knowledge of wireless transmission of power, even when employed for such infinitesimal work as affecting a delicate wireless receiver. But, theoretically, the thing is not impossible, and we can only hope that it will become yearly more probable, and that eventually the ocean steamer will be as independent and as simply controlled as a trolley car.